Harold Camping is the man who created Family Radio – his venue for spreading the love of Jesus. He three times predicted the date that Jesus would return, based on his extensive study of numerology.
Back around 2008 when I was looking at all the major radio owners, I was shocked to discover that the non-profit Family Radio controlled about half a dozen FM licenses in major markets – in the COMMERCIAL part of the FM band. Similar stations have sold for $50 to $100 million each.
Well with Mr Camping now in a nursing home – having run up debts to put up all those billboards and losing most of his donors, Family Radio is selling off those stations
The station in the Washington DC area is being sold to CBS, reportedly to start up an all news FM station to compete with WTOP, formerly owned by Bonneville Broadcasting, the media arm of the Mormon Church.
Well glory be! With all that studyin’ a goin’ on, you’d think he came across that part o’ the scripture that says no one knows when … it will come like a thief in the night and all that. Tarnation!
I still remember when Oral Roberts out in Tulsa Oklahoma in 1987 announced that if his viewers didn’t send him $8 milliob dollars, he would be going home to live with Jesus.
That left me confused, since I thought that was the whole point – to do what you needed to do in order to spend Eternity with Jesus. So I didn’t send him any money, in the hope he would be called home sooner. He died in 2009, so I guess my faith was not strong enough.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have been guilty of the same. They declared the coming of Jesus in 1914, 1931, 1975 and we are still waiting. I find it fascinating how these self-anointed prophets with the inside info on god announce these ridiculous dates to be found wrong every single time. I just fail to understand this incredible fascination with a man who died 2000 years ago, who according to well-respected historians might not even have existed! Just pure modern mythology. When will this nonsense end?
You must be around 23. Your knowledge of history is grotesque. Western Civilization is built upon Jesus of Nazareth. The historians you refer must be socialist revisionists intent on denying the life of a documented person in history. Whatever your beef is with God, why not confine your argument to the so-called Resurrection of Jesus…and examine it with the dedication of a critic and with objective logic. You’ll be doing all of us Christians a favor if you can disprove it, but dont be surprised if you change your own mind…assuming your able to use decent critical thinking and reasoned arguments. Looking at history half-assed can come back to bite you.
So you are saying that Greeks, Phoenicians, Persians, Arabs, Egyptians, Hebrews, and the Ancient Roman Empire that predated Jesus of Nazareth by centuries are not part of “Westerrn Civilization”?
You sir, are an internet troll. Keep up the good work.
The station was sold for $8.5 million. The “rule of thumb” in estimating the value of a station is to take the population within the “contour” of the listening area of the station (about 5 milion people) and multiply it by a $ per person… the low end at the worst of the drop was about $3/person… at the height of the bidding wars, it got up to maybe $12/person.
That’s an overly simplistic shortcut – you also have to look at the demographics of that population – is it affluent suburban people or public housing tenants? Another issue is that radio lives and dies by which stations people have on their presets. If your station isn’t on the presets, it’s not likely they’ll ever know your station exists. It’s probable that very few people had WFSI-FM (107.9) programmed into their car radio.
The consensus of the people who do this for a living is that CBS got a total steal. $15 million is the bottom of the bottom…. $25 would have been the right range, and maybe as high as $40 million.
If I were buying the station, I would probably be cautious too – given the station with Family Radio’s management at the moment, there is a chance for a dispute that might tie things up in court… there may also be tax implications about a non-profit organization making a large profit by selling assets off.
The Crystsl Cathedral, the bankrupt home of the Robert Schuller TV ministry has been sold to the local Catholic diocese
http://m.npr.org/story/142518963?url=/2011/11/18/142518963/future-of-ministry-uncertain-after-cathedrals-sale
Well, ole Oral (what a name for a preacher, huh?) now spends eternity with cheeses.
Amazing… somehow I feel I missed my call in life! Think about the tax-free status, and all that money pouring in tithes and offerings. Reminds me of Jim Bakker bringing a wheelbarrow full of coins, dumping them on the stage and complaining that he has to pay someone to count all that (I guess that was before the automatic machines were available). He wanted bills, especially those with double zeros. In the name of Cheeses say Holy Gruyere!
I had a soft spot for Gene Scott. He told you right up front your money was going into buying his horses and supply of cigars.
Ernest Angley (say BAY-BEE! Out demon spirits! – be healed!) was also a big influence on me.